Champagne Charpentier

Champagne Charpentier

The Charpentiers have grown grapes in Champagne for eight generations. For most of that time the harvest went to the local cooperative, but from 2006 the family began vinifying and selling wine from its own vines.

The father of Jean-Marc Charpentier, who runs the domaine today, was an agricultural engineer and headmaster of a school of viticulture and oenology, where he trained a great many growers.

Jean-Marc studied at his father's school and, from 1988, learned the craft of growing at the side of his grandparents, who worked the vines themselves.

The first thing he did on striking out on his own was to vinify parcel by parcel.

Doing so allowed the individual character of each different terroir to come through with real precision.

To push his own philosophy of Champagne further still, he converted twenty-four hectares to organic farming and, from 2009, began working biodynamically as well.

The domaine is based in the village of Charly-sur-Marne in the Vallée de la Marne, and from there farms seventy-two separate parcels.

Where growers in this part of Champagne typically plant more than 90% Pinot Meunier, at Charpentier Chardonnay accounts for 45%, with Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir making up the rest.

That unusual balance tells in the glass, giving rise to Champagnes of real individuality: cuvées drawn from single small parcels, and special parcel-selection bottlings aged on their lees for as long as seven years.